Editorials from around the country

The storm of outrage triggered by House Republican leaders' failure earlier last week to take up a $60 billion measure for superstorm Sandy relief was remarkable for its ferocity.

But after the shouting dies down, it also may turn out to be notable for something else: the opening it provides to renew talks on creating a national catastrophe fund.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, was among the loudest critics, slamming his own party and bitterly telling reporters that "palace intrigue" had trumped the needs of the storm's victims.

Republican Rep. Peter King of New York branded House Speaker John Boehner's initial decision to pull the bill a "cruel knife in the back" for New York and New Jersey.

Disaster relief, both concluded, shouldn't be political.

They're right. And even though Mr. Boehner buckled under the pressure, agreeing to hold a vote Friday on $9 million for the national flood insurance program and a Jan. 15 vote on the remaining $51 billion, that reversal shouldn't tamp down the raised voices of storm victims who became pawns on a national political chessboard.

A national catastrophe fund could stop this indefensible game-playing from happening again during the next disaster.

The Miami Herald

NCAA suit has little merit

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The politically charged decision by Gov. Tom Corbett to mount a late, rearguard legal attack over collegiate sports' harsh punishment of Pennsylvania State University seems unlikely to help the university -- or the state as a whole -- move beyond the school's scandalous sheltering of convicted sexual predator Jerry Sandusky.

The antitrust suit Corbett filed Wednesday -- which challenges the National Collegiate Athletic Association's $60 million university fine, four-year postseason football ban, cuts to athletic scholarships, and other penalties -- sends the wrong message.

Even if the NCAA's treatment of Penn State was different than in other cases - where sanctions resulted from violating specific athletic or academic rules - Corbett's wrongheaded lawsuit flies in the face of the fact that university officials, including the governor in his capacity as a Penn State trustee, agreed to take the NCAA's harsh medicine. Now, months later, does he expect everyone to forget that?

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Let's craft sensible laws

An arms race has begun in the United States, a trend that anyone concerned with the proliferation of weaponry should find concerning. And the trend is clear: People are racing to buy guns either out of fear in the wake of the horrific shootings in Newtown, Conn., or because they fear government controls.

While we'd have no problem with a ban on assault weapons such as the AR-15 -- hunters have absolutely no need for such weapons -- the fact is that there are already many of these weapons in the hands of civilians.

Instead, we'd focus on two other areas of the law: banning high-capacity magazines and offering a generous buyback program to take some of the existing large clips out of circulation and closing the notorious "gun show loophole" that allows roughly 40 percen of gun sales to be conducted without a federal background check.

Banning high-capacity magazines, by itself, won't prevent another Newtown, either. But it could help make it harder for a determined killer to get his hands on one.

And forcing more gun sales into the light of day would help make it harder for a deranged killer to legally buy a weapon. The sale of ammunition also should be more tightly controlled. Last summer, in the wake of the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., introduced a bill to ban the sale of ammunition online. It's a good idea.

We also still firmly believe that President Barack Obama's task force on gun crimes, headed by Vice President Joe Biden, needs to make mental health services part of this discussion.

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